


The (Little) Highlanders

by Dorkangel



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who 1963
Genre: Gen, Minor connotations of violence, Scottish Accent Abuse, Second Doctor Reference, but hey it's a fanfic, i mean have you seen some of this stuff?!, who really cares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-17 06:07:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1376653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorkangel/pseuds/Dorkangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Tenth Doctor, Rose and Jack go back to 1741, 5 years before Jamie McCrimmon met the Doctor, and accidentally bump into his younger self...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The (Little) Highlanders

The (Little) Highlanders

 

(Unrelated to any previous fics I may have written, I just enjoy messing with Jamie because, honestly, there's so much about him that the show never told us.)

 

"Are you sure this time, Doctor?" laughed Rose. He spun around, pulling one last lever as he did. "Of course I am! Scotland, 1979."

 

They'd had a few adventures with Captain Jack Harkness since then, and he was sitting on one of the mystifying tree-thingies that the TARDIS console room was full of at that point. "Sheffield, Doctor." he pointed out. "It's supposed to be Sheffield, not Scotland."

The Doctor started guiltily.

"...We can take a bus."

"A bus? All of time and space at our disposal, and you want to take a bus?"

"Rose Tyler, I have been travelling in the TARDIS for just under nine hundred years, and I have never yet taken a bus from Scotland to Sheffield. And... well, new experiences!"

 

He stopped talking and glared at the TARDIS. "Oh no you don't." he muttered, kicking the console and the materialisation noise began as it groaned and shuddered into life. Captain Jack threw open the doors... To a misty, grey looking moor.

"Yep. Defiantly Scotland, Doctor. Are you sure?"

"I thought you said it was definitely Scotland."

"Are you sure it's 1979?"

"Yes. Sort of."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Come on! One way to find out."

 

The Doctor led the way that most of the footprints on the muddied moor were pointing. He said that that was the way that there would most likely be a town. Rose was sceptical, but she didn't say anything.

 

As the three travellers walked, three scruffy kids - two boys in their early teens and a younger girl - dressed in traditional Scottish clothes marched in the other direction, up the hill. Unfortunately for the Doctor, they were three tiny Jacobite rebels and the year was 1741, though this was more meddling on the TARDIS's part than actual chance.

They stopped at the river, the two boys looking over it curiously. It was very deep. "I bet," began the older one, in a ridiculously strong Highland accent. "That if you were to hold your head under for a minute, you'd be able to see to the bottom."

The other two looked at him as though he was insane. "Alexander," began his sister. "That is the stupidest idea I've ever heard in all me 

life."

The other boy hesitated. "Seems reasonable."

 

"Come on Jamie, let's try it!"

 

"No no no no no no, Alexander, let go 

of me, come on!"

 

The boy was pulled along by his cousin, his arms twisted behind his back."Alexander McLauren, let go of me this instance, or you'll drown me, and then you'll have to deal with the Laird and-"

 

"Nah, my father'll let me off. You're only a piper's son anyhow-"

Unfortunately, it was in this instance that the Doctor, having left Rose and Jack with a resigned picnic next to the TARDIS, stumbled on the three kids. "Oh hell." he muttered. Oh Rasillon, oh my giddy aunt, oh crumbs." He took his sonic screwdriver out and scanned them. "1741. Five years before I met Jamie, and that's a piper's son..."

He hid nervously behind a tree. It wasn't a particularly good disguise, but the wee bairns weren't looking for him.

Excited to anger by the insult on the his father, and the insult on being a piper in general, Jamie had twisted out of Alexander's grip and started fighting him. He at last managed to tackle him. "Aye, and what were you saying about pipers Alexander?"

 

"That they're wimpy weaklings!" laughed his cousin, throwing him off and dragging him to the edge again. For a second Jamie happened to glance over the ledge, and saw something strange.

"Alexander! What's that?"

 

"Ha! You'll not get me that way, Jamie McCrimmon."

 

"No, really! A big blue box, and two people!"

Seeing Rose, Jack and the TARDIS at last, Alexander let Jamie go and they both dropped onto their bellies, drawing the knives that they apparently already carried. "Kirsty," hissed Jamie. "Get out o' here. It's no 

place for a wee lassie."

 

"What have you seen?" she asked, crawling forward to join them. "Kirsty," growled both the boys at once. "Leave."

She pouted but crawled back a little way and stood up. "I'll fetch the Laird." she whispered, and ran off lightly to do so, leaving the two boys in their plaid, kneeling over the ledge, watching.

 

The Doctor had been smiling. He didn't seriously believe that two miniature Jacobites with pocket knives could do any serious damage to the immortal Captain Jack Harkness, and they seemed unlikely to attack a girl. He remembered that of Jamie, a trait that was already evident, that unreasonable desire to look after the other gender, despite them being perfectly capable of looking after themselves.

Jamie had told him that his father had died in one of the battles between the English and the Scottish - or rather, the redcoats and the highlanders - and he'd been sent to be a piper to his uncle, the Laird. The Doctor had no idea that he'd been so young. He'd been about eighteen when he first met the Doctor, in 1746, so he must be about thirteen now.

 

His cousins would each meet their fate. Alexander died protecting them, and Kirsty had taken a boat to France to escape the violence.

After the TimeLords wiped Jamie's mind, the Doctor had no idea what had happened to him. He had never dared to go back and find out.

 

Hearing the two travellers talking, Alexander looked up at Jamie. "English and something else."

 

"They here to kill us?"

 

"He's got a soldiers coat. Maybe he's her guard?"

 

"Why isn't she wearing enough clothes?"

 

"If they're redcoats, why aren't they dead yet?"

The two boys glanced at each other. "No way." Jamie murmured. "I am NOT going to-"

 

"Ya will!"

 

"I won't."

He and Jamie had a half-silent argument in Gaelic that ended with Jamie being thumped on the head, glaring at Alexander and slipping silently down the hill.

Jamie stopped in a place that he could see the travellers more easily. He swallowed nervously, another habit the Doctor remembered from before. Or later, depending on who's point of view you took.

The Doctor took a couple of steps forward, laying his hand on Alexander's shoulder. The boy jumped up, fumbling with his knife. "Och, quiet!" laughed the Doctor in his most Scottish accent. "Your father sent me to look for ye. What's all this?"

 

Alexander frowned at him, but then, there's always been something about the Doctor's face(s)..."Two strangers, sir. Hanging around with a big box, which is more than a wee bit strange-"

The Doctor tried to look surprised. He reached into his pocket taking out his sonic screwdriver. "What's that?"

 

"It's a... It's a new kind of a gun, lad. But honestly this doesn't look like much of an invasion, now, does it?"

 

The two of them lay down on the ledge to watch the events unfolding down below. The Doctor was pretty sure that Kirsty would be a while in finding the Laird. He hoped so, anyway.

 

Jamie stood behind a bend in the rock, watching the strangers. They were talking.

"Yeah, well, when you first met me I wasn't in too much of a positive position." laughed Captain Jack.

"It was worse for me, I was hanging from a balloon!"

 

"I mean, being on the run and all."

Jamie cocked his head thoughtfully. If they were on the run, they might be a bit more sympathetic to a group of fugitive rebels. "The Time Agents stole two years of my life, so I ran away."

Hmm. Imprisoned for two years then. This man could be dangerous, but Jamie wasn't too bad a fighter. Alexander was the really strong one, but Jamie wasn't too bad.

"That's why I was there, in London. You know," he said suddenly, as he shook a bleeding finger. He picked up a bayonet he had cut himself on. "I don't think this is 1979."

 

Above them, the Doctor simultaneously smiled and winced.

 

She looked a bit nervous. "I hope it's not dangerous. I haven't got any weapons."

 

Hearing this, Jamie came quietly out of his hiding place, waiting for them to notice him. If they didn't have any weapons, he wasn't scared. He didn't have to wait long: Jack had a soldier's instincts.

 

"Hey! What are you doing?" asked Rose, jumping up.

 

"I could ask you the same thing, this is my uncle's land."

 

Jack rolled his eyes at the TARDIS. "Hey, kid, what year is this?"

 

"What kind o' a question is that?". Jack took a step forward, not deliberately meaning to be threatening, but Jamie involuntarily took a step back. "Year of our Lord, 1741." Jamie mumbled confusedly, glaring nervously at his feet.

"Hey, relax, I'm not going to hurt you." said Captain Jack. Jamie just drew his knife proudly and raised an eyebrow. "Jack, Rose!" shouted the Doctor from above, deciding enough was enough. If this Jamie was the same as HIS Jamie, he was about to start a fight he was going to lose. "Leave him alone, and come up here. This young Alexander is the Laird's son, and that's his cousin, Jamie."

 

"How did you-"

 

"Your father told me. These are my friends, Rose, from London - supporting the Prince though, have no doubt - and Jack, from... Well, I suppose you'd say he'd come from the colonies in America. From VERY far away."

 

"What are ye doing here?" asked Alexander. "Visiting the Laird. Only just arrived. Jamie," he interrupted brightly. "I'm a Doctor. Come here."

 

"What?!"

 

"Trust me, please."

The boy glanced around to Alexander, who frowned, and then at Rose and Jack, who were frowning as well.

"W-why?"

 

"Why not?"

Jamie took a few steps forward so he was within arm's length of the Doctor. He put his fingertips on Jamie's temples and tried to go into his mind as quickly and gently as possible, so the boy didn't know he was there and wouldn't suspect him of witchcraft. In the 1700s, of course, the more educated people in the cities had long stopped believing in witches, but being all remote in the Scottish Highlands, and being kids, they wouldn't know any better. The Doctor could name several occasions when Jamie had put scientific advances beyond his ken down to witchcraft...

But enough of that. The Doctor skimmed lightly through his memories, trying not to damage anything, smiling at a happy memory of Kirsty on a swing, wincing slightly at an occasion barely a week ago when the Laird had beaten Jamie and Alexander for trying to steal something (Alexander's idea, of course) and finally finding a tiny, hidden place to store the secret memories he wanted to hide, away from the TimeLords, so that when the time came, Jamie would be able to remember the Doctor. 

He took his hands quickly off Jamiw's head, and the boy stumbled backwards. "W-what did you do?"

 

"Hmm? Oh, the Laird mentioned you'd bumped your head."

 

"Aye, I- no, I haven't bumped my head though."

 

"Yes, he said said you mightn't remember it."

 

Alexander glanced over the Doctor's shoulder. "There's Kirsty and the Laird."

 

The Doctor spun around suddenly. "Time to go." he muttered to the others. "What's going on, Doctor?" asked Rose, half-laughing. "Into the TARDIS." nodded Jack, noting not only the little girl and the older man, but also a couple of very sturdy looking Highland warriors.

They piled in, Alexander already jogging to meet his father. Jack glanced at the scanner, and was surprised to see Jamie still standing outside, gazing at the blue box in confusion. The Doctor stuck his head out and smiled at the lad. "You're going to have to not look at this," he said quietly. "It it'll ruin the timeline."

 

"The what? Doctor, you were inside my head."

 

"Yeah, well-"

 

"I can kind of remember you. The writing on the top of your box makes sense."

 

"... Yeah. It usually does."

 

"But, Doctor, I can't read." The Doctor smiled, remembering Victoria spending all her time not chasing aliens teaching him. "You will be able to, in the future."

 

"I'm remembering the future?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Then I won't look."

 

The Doctor smiled, a little sadly. "Oh, and Jamie, don't tell the others about me being in your head and everything."

 

"I'm not that stupid. Alexander'll probably just thump me."

 

The boy ran towards the others a little, into the trees, and did not turn around as he heard a strange groaning noise, like someone dragging keys up the strings of a piano.

But he did smile.

**Author's Note:**

> The keys and piano thing is because the original TARDIS noise was made by someone scraping their keys down a piano.  
> This is almost plotless it's so dumb, but hey, give me kudos and please comment :)


End file.
